Controversial Digital Economy Bill Passed by the Lords in the UK

The controversial Digital Economy Bill has passed through the House of Lords, one of the UK Parliament's chambers, and will now go before the House of Commons, where it is expected to be rushed through before the general elections in the country. The bill has seen some of its most controversial portions amended, though critics say the changes don't do enough to address the problems they see with the law in its current form.

The most worrying part, which basically gave the government the power to change the law regarding online copyright at will without consulting the Parliament, has been rejected and modified. However, the modified form would enable courts to issue injunctions against certain websites after claims of copyright infringements. This would mean that sites could be taken down without a court actually finding them guilty of copyright infringement, a provision that also came under attack from most online companies, including Google, Yahoo and Facebook, and ISPs.

Liberal Democrat media spokesman Lord Clement-Jones, who was instrumental in chaining the original clause, offered some "clarifications and improvements" on the changes, but did not put them to the vote.

However, Junior Business Minister Lord Young said that the Liberal Democrat amendments would be incompatible with the EU Technical Standards Directive (TSD) and, so, it would be impossible to enforce. He did tell peers, "It is our intention to try to bring forward, as the bill moves to the Commons, a clause that would seek to ultimately achieve the same effect." Among these, the secretary of state would have the power "to bring forward regulations to achieve the desired effect of site blocking."

The bill sees plenty of opposition from the Internet companies, but also rights groups. These are criticizing some of the most drastic measures, like the provision to have users disconnected from the Internet after three copyright-infringement violations, a provision that made it in the version of the bill passed by the Lords. The rush to get the law through the Parliament has also been a cause of concern. [via BBC]